Security Leader Says U.S. Would Retaliate Against Cyberattacks

美新增40支網絡部隊

MARK MAZZETTI,  DAVID E. SANGER 聯合報道 2013年03月13日

Shawn Thew/European Pressphoto Agency

周二，美國聯邦調查局局長羅伯特·S·穆勒和國家情報總監小詹姆斯·R·克拉珀。

華盛頓——美國軍方新成立的網絡戰司令部(Cyber Command)司令周二告訴國會，他正在組建13支由程序員和電腦專家組成的小組，他們可以在美國的網絡遭受重大攻擊時，向其他國家發起進攻性網絡攻擊。這是奧巴馬政府首次公開承認開發此種武器以備戰時使用。
美國國家安全局(National Security Agency)局長、新近成立的網絡戰司令部司令基思·亞歷山大將軍(Keith Alexander)告訴眾議院軍事委員會(House Armed Services Committee)，“我希望說明，這支隊伍，這支保衛國家的部隊，並不是一支防禦性的隊伍。這是一支進攻性的隊伍，如果美國在網絡空間遭受攻擊，國防 部會用這支隊伍來保衛這個國家。在我們正在創建的這些隊伍中，有13支就是專門用於執行這一任務的。”

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在亞歷山大將軍發表這番證詞的同一天，國家情報總監小詹姆斯·R·克拉珀(James R. Clapper Jr.)警告國會，針對美國的重大網絡攻擊可能嚴重破壞這個國家的基礎設施與經濟，他指出，這種打擊如今對美國構成了最危險的直接威脅，甚至比國際恐怖主 義組織的襲擊還要緊迫。
周一，國家安全顧問托馬斯·E·多尼隆(Thomas E. Donilon)要求中國當局調查此類攻擊事件，並就制定網絡空間行為的新規範展開對話。
亞歷山大將軍一直是美國在此問題上主要的戰略制定者，但是在本周二之前，他總是從防禦角度來談論此事。他通常會迴避有關美國進攻能力的問題，會把這 些問題轉化成有關防禦的討論，例如如何抵禦來自中國和俄羅斯不斷加劇的計算機間諜活動，以及公用事業、手機網絡和其他基礎設施遭受致命性攻擊的可能性。在 近年由美國支持的一次針對伊朗核濃縮設施的大型電腦攻擊中，他也起到了關鍵性的作用。他在聽證會上公開發言時並沒有討論那次高度機密的行動。
國家情報總監克拉珀告訴參議院情報委員會(Senate Intelligence Committee)，在情報機構看來，美國在未來兩年遭受重大計算機攻擊的“可能性很小”，他將這種重大攻擊定義為“可導致長期的、大範圍的公用事業服務中斷，如地區性斷電”的行動。
和克拉珀一同出現的還有其他幾家情報機構的負責人，包括國防情報局(Defense Intelligence Agency)的邁克爾·T·弗林中將(Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn)、美國聯邦調查局(FBI)局長羅伯特·S·穆勒三世(Robert S. Mueller III)以及中央情報局(CIA)局長約翰·O·布倫南(John O. Brennan)。他們共同發佈了一份對美國所面臨威脅的年度報告。克拉珀首度在對國會的報告中將網絡攻擊列在首位。情報官員沒將國際恐怖主義列為美國面 臨的首要危險，這在2001年9月11日的襲擊之後實屬罕見。
克拉珀在他的證詞中說，“在一些情況下，我們的世界應用數字新技術的速度超過了我們對其相關安全影響的理解和對其潛在風險的控制。”他認為，俄羅斯 和中國不太可能在近期對美國實施“摧毀性的”網絡攻擊，但他說外國的間諜人員已經攻擊了政府部門、商業部門以及私人企業的計算機網絡。
克拉珀列舉了兩個具體的攻擊案例，2012年8月對沙特阿拉伯國家石油公司（Saudi Aramco，簡稱“沙特阿美”）的攻擊，以及去年對一些美國銀行及證券交易所的攻擊。美國情報官員認為這些都是伊朗所為。
亞歷山大將軍在作證時選擇了同樣的主題，他說，他正在新增40支網絡小隊，其中有13支的重點是進攻，其他27支的重點是培訓和監控。在被追問時， 他表示，最好的防禦有賴於通過私人“互聯網服務提供商”監督進入美國的信息流，這些提供商可以在有關信息傳播的幾毫秒內向政府就潛在的危險攻擊發出警告。 不過，這種監控肯定會在隱私權的支持者中引起更多爭論，這些人對政府監控大多數電子郵件和其他計算機信息交流的定位數據和地址數據感到擔憂。
克拉珀證詞的主要篇幅還是留給了傳統威脅。美國情報官員再次強調了朝鮮的核武器和導彈計劃構成的危險，據稱，朝鮮的導彈計劃首次“對美國構成了嚴重 威脅”，也對朝鮮的東亞鄰國構成了嚴重威脅。克拉珀在事先準備好的證詞中指出，在第三次核試驗後，朝鮮最近發出了一系列挑釁性聲明，還展示了一枚能夠通過 公路進行轉移的洲際導彈，在去年12月在“大浦洞-2型”(Taepodong-2)運載火箭上加載一枚衛星，並將其成功發射。
克拉珀在和一名議員交換意見時說，“朝鮮的聲明充斥着宣傳口號，不過，它也顯示了他們的態度或意圖。”他補充說，他擔心朝鮮“會發起一場針對韓國的挑釁行動”。
在討論恐怖主義時，克拉珀指出，雖然基地組織(Al Qaeda)在巴基斯坦的核心“很可能不具備在西方實施複雜、大規模襲擊的能力”，但其大量分支依然構成威脅。位列威脅首位的是它在也門的分支機構阿拉伯 半島基地組織(Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula)，克拉珀稱，該分支保留了攻擊美國本土這個目標。他還指出了在其他六個國家仍構成地區性暴力威脅的一些激進組織。
克拉珀以指責決策制定者造成目前的預算僵局作為他的開場白，他說，被稱為“自動減赤”(sequestration)的預算削減方案會迫使美國的情 報機構大幅削減保密計劃、給僱員放假。過去十年，保密情報預算有了大幅增加，克拉珀把目前這一輪的預算削減與20世紀90年代的削減相提並論。當時，冷戰 的結束導致中情局的預算大幅降低。
“與公園開放時間縮短、機場安檢排隊時間加長等‘自動減赤’帶來的更直觀的影響相比，情報力量減少的影響卻不那麼明顯，”克拉珀說，“影響的作用過程是漸進的，也是幾乎不可見的，直到我們遭遇一場情報失誤。”
按計劃，威脅聽證會是每年唯一的一項此類活動，情報機構負責人要就美國面臨的危險公開向國會提供證詞。克拉珀沒有掩飾他對這種一年一度的儀式性活動 的反對。奧巴馬在國情咨文演講時，保證會對國會和公眾提高透明度，但退休的空軍(Air Force)上將、71歲的克拉珀明確表示，他看不出更多的公開披露能帶來多少益處。
他說，“公開就情報問題進行聽證，這根本就自相矛盾。”

Scott Shane對本文有報道貢獻。
翻譯：曹莉、張薇

Security Leader Says U.S. Would Retaliate Against Cyberattacks

By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER March 13, 2013

WASHINGTON — The chief of the military’s newly created Cyber Command told Congress on Tuesday that he is establishing 13 teams of programmers and computer experts who could carry out offensive cyberattacks on foreign nations if the United States were hit with a major attack on its own networks, the first time the Obama administration has publicly admitted to developing such weapons for use in wartime.
“I would like to be clear that this team, this defend-the-nation team, is not a defensive team,” Gen. Keith Alexander, who runs both the National Security Agency and the new Cyber Command, told the House Armed Services Committee. “This is an offensive team that the Defense Department would use to defend the nation if it were attacked in cyberspace. Thirteen of the teams that we’re creating are for that mission alone.”

General Alexander’s testimony came on the same day the nation’s top intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., warned Congress that a major cyberattack on the United States could cripple the country’s infrastructure and economy, and suggested that such attacks now pose the most dangerous immediate threat to the United States, even more pressing than an attack by global terrorist networks.
On Monday, Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, demanded that Chinese authorities investigate such attacks and enter talks about new rules governing behavior in cyberspace.
General Alexander has been a major architect of the American strategy on this issue, but until Tuesday he almost always talked about it in defensive terms. He has usually deflected questions about America’s offensive capability, and turned them into discussions of how to defend against mounting computer espionage from China and Russia, and the possibility of crippling attacks on utilities, cellphone networks and other infrastructure. He was also a crucial player in the one major computer attack the United States is known to have sponsored in recent years, aimed at Iran’s nuclear enrichment plants. He did not discuss that highly classified operation during his open testimony.
Mr. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that American spy agencies saw only a “remote chance” in the next two years of a major computer attack on the United States, which he defined as an operation that “would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services, such as a regional power outage.”
Mr. Clapper appeared with the heads of several other intelligence agencies, including Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the F.B.I. director Robert S. Mueller III, and the C.I.A. director John O. Brennan, to present their annual assessment of the threats facing the nation. It was the first time that Mr. Clapper has listed cyberattacks first in his presentation to Congress, and the rare occasion since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that intelligence officials have not listed international terrorism first in the catalog of dangers facing the United States.
“In some cases,” Mr. Clapper said in his testimony, “the world is applying digital technologies faster than our ability to understand the security implications and mitigate potential risks.” He said it was unlikely that Russia and China would launch “devastating” cyberattacks against the United States in the near future, but he said foreign spy services had already hacked the computer networks of government agencies, businesses and private companies.
Two specific attacks Mr. Clapper listed, an August 2012 attack against the Saudi oil company Aramco and attacks on American banks and stock exchanges last year, are believed by American intelligence officials to be the work of Iran.
General Alexander picked up on the same themes in his testimony, saying that he was adding 40 cyber teams, 13 focused on offense and 27 on training and surveillance. When pressed, he said that the best defense hinged on being able to monitor incoming traffic to the United States through private “Internet service providers,” who could alert the government, in the milliseconds that electronic messages move, about potentially dangerous attacks. Such surveillance is bound to raise more debate with privacy advocates, who fear government monitoring of the origin and the addressing data on most e-mail messages and other computer exchanges.
Traditional threats occupied much of Mr. Clapper’s testimony. American intelligence officials are giving new emphasis to the danger posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, which are said for the first time to “pose a serious threat to the United States” as well as to its East Asian neighbors. North Korea, which recently made a series of belligerent statements after its third nuclear test, has displayed an intercontinental missile that can be moved by road and in December launched a satellite atop a Taepodong-2 launch vehicle, Mr. Clapper’s prepared statement noted.
“The rhetoric, while it is propaganda laced, is also an indicator of their attitude and perhaps their intent,” Mr. Clapper said during one exchange with a lawmaker, adding that he was concerned that North Korea “could initiate a provocative action against the South.”
In his discussion of terrorism, Mr. Clapper noted that while Al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan “is probably unable to carry out complex, large-scale attacks in the West,” spinoffs still posed a threat. Listed first is the affiliate in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which Mr. Clapper said had retained its goal of attacks on United States soil, but he also noted militant groups in six other countries that still threaten local violence.
Mr. Clapper began his remarks by criticizing policy makers for the current budget impasse, saying that the budget cuts known as sequestration will force American spy agencies to make sharp reductions in classified programs and to furlough employees. The classified intelligence budget has ballooned over the past decade, and Mr. Clapper compared the current round of cuts to the period during the 1990s when the end of the cold war led to drastic reductions in the C.I.A.’s budget.
“Unlike more directly observable sequestration impacts, like shorter hours at public parks or longer security lines at airports, the degradation of intelligence will be insidious,” Mr. Clapper said. “It will be gradual and almost invisible unless and until, of course, we have an intelligence failure.”
The threat hearing is the only scheduled occasion each year when the spy chiefs present open testimony to Congress about the dangers facing the United States, and Mr. Clapper did not hide the fact that he is opposed to the annual ritual. President Obama devoted part of his State of the Union address to a pledge of greater transparency with the Congress and the American public, but Mr. Clapper, a 71-year-old retired Air Force general, made it clear that he saw few benefits of more public disclosure.
“An open hearing on intelligence matters is something of a contradiction in terms,” he said.

Scott Shane contributed reporting.